A
northern Alberta doctor warned U.S. Senators on what he says have
been the devastating health impacts of the tar sands on families –
effects, he says, that have been willfully “ignored” by the
Canadian and Alberta governments.

“I
appeal to you to keep up the pressure – this is an ongoing
tragedy. A total disgrace,” said Dr. John O’Connor,
Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

He
sighted statistics for rare cancers – of the bile duct for example
– that have shot up 400 times for what is considered normal for a
tiny community, such as Fort Chipewyan – which is downstream, to
the north of the oil sands.

“These
are published, peer-reviewed studies that indicate that the
government of Alberta and Canada have been lying, misrepresenting the
impact of industry on the environment,” said O’Connor.The
Alberta government has long denied cancer links with the province's
multi-billion-dollar crown energy jewel. It states on its
website that there is "insufficient evidence to
link the incidence of cancer in Fort Chipewyan to oil sands
operations" and rates of cancer are "within the expected
range."

O'Connor
finds that hard to believe.

“All
of the scientific studies that have accumulated, it’s almost like
they don’t exist,” he said.

The
family physician was invited to brief two U.S. Senators who are
against the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline – to carry
bitumen from Alberta to Texas.

California
Senator Barbara Boxer said the Alberta doctor is an important
“witness” as to why the Keystone pipeline should be turned down,
based on health concerns alone.

O'Connor said
he came "with absolutely no political agenda" and simply as
an “advocate for patients” because he feels his repeated calls
for Canadian authorities to take precautionary health actions have
been ignored.

“In
my experience, when pressure is exerted outside Canada, the
government reacts,” he said

ReWire
has reported previously on a form of oil well enhancement in
California that doesn't get much attention from the press, namely,
offshore
fracking.
At least 12 rigs off the coast of California inject proprietary mixes
of potentially dangerous chemicals into undersea rock formations at
high pressure. They do this in order to break those rocks up which
makes it easier to pump out the crude.

That's
the process commonly known as fracking, short for hydraulic
fracturing. The fluid pumped into the wells usually gets pumped back
out again as wastewater. And if you suddenly have an uneasy feeling
about where those offshore rigs dispose of that wastewater, you may
well be correct. About half of the state's offshore rigs pump at
least some of their wastewater right into the Santa Barbara Channel.

According
to the Center
for Biological Diversity,
oil rig operators have federal permits to dump more than nine billion
gallons of fracking wastewater into California's ocean waters each
year. That's enough wastewater to fill more than 100 stadiums the
size of the Rose Bowl brim-full of toxic waste. And CBD wants the
Environmental Protection Agency to do something about it.

In
a legal petition filed Wednesday, CBD is urging the EPA to rewrite
those federal wastewater dumping permits to keep fracking waste out
of the ocean, and to develop national guidelines for offshore rig
wastewater disposal that address the threat from fracking chemicals.

"It's
disgusting that oil companies dump wastewater into California's
ocean," said Miyoko Sakashita, CBD oceans director, in a press
release.
"You can see the rigs from shore, but the contaminated waters
are hidden from view. Our goal is to make sure toxic fracking
chemicals don't poison wildlife or end up in the food chain."

Fracking
wastewater contains more than just the chemicals used by oil and gas
companies to break up the rocks, including toxic substances like
methanol, benzene, naphthalene, and trimethylbenzene. It can also
include nasties that it picks up from those deep rock formations,
including lead and arsenic. And while safely disposing of such
substances isn't easy in the best of situations, ocean disposal poses
special risks for those who play in, live near, or eat fish from the
sea.

Not
to mention the risks to the California coast's beleaguered wildlife
-- an issue that's prompted staff with the California Coastal
Commission to urge an end to fracking wastewater dumping.

"It
came as a complete surprise to learn that oil companies are fracking
in waters off the coast where I let my kids swim and play," said
Sakashita. "The toxic chemicals used for offshore fracking don't
belong in the ocean, and the best way to protect our coast is to ban
fracking altogether."

Chris
Clarke is a natural history writer and environmental journalist
currently at work on a book about the Joshua tree. He lives in Joshua
Tree

Do
you want solid proof that paid government shills are targeting
websites, blogs, forums and social media accounts? For years,
many have suspected that government trolls have been systematically
causing havoc all over the Internet, but proving it has been
difficult. But now thanks to documents leaked by Edward Snowden
and revealed by Glenn Greenwald, we finally have hard evidence that
western governments have been doing this. As you will see
below, a UK intelligence outfit known as the Government
Communications Headquarters, through a previously secret unit known
as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, has been
systematically attempting “to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and
warp online discourse”. This should be deeply disturbing to
anyone that values free speech on the Internet.

It
isn’t just that the British government is trying to influence what
people are thinking. The reality is that this is far bigger
than a mere propaganda campaign. As Greenwald recently noted on
his new website,
the “integrity of the Internet itself” is at stake…

By
publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted
some of the key, discrete revelations: themonitoring
of YouTube and Blogger,
the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS
attacks they
accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey
traps”
(luring people into compromising situations using sex)
and destructive
viruses.
But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point
revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are
attempting to
control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse,
and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet
itself.

So
what techniques are the British using to control and manipulate
discourse on the Internet? According to Greenwald, the
documents that Snowden has uncovered show that they are willing to
sink to despicable lows in order to get the results that they desire…

Among
the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to
inject all sorts of false
material onto
the internet in order to destroy
the reputation of
its targets; and (2) to
use social sciences and other techniques tomanipulate
online discourse and
activism to generate
outcomes it
considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just
consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends:
“false
flag operations”
(posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to
someone else), fake
victim blog posts (pretending
to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to
destroy), and posting “negative
information”
on various forums.

The
following is a list of Internet infiltration techniques that were
listed on one particular slide that Snowden leaked…

There
is also evidence that the Canadian government has been involved in
this sort of thing as well. The following comes from Natural
News…

You’ve
probably run into them before —
those seemingly random antagonizers who always end up diverting the
conversation in an online chat room or article comment section away
from the issue at hand, and towards a much different agenda.
Hot-button issues like illegal immigration, the two-party political
system, the “war on terror” and even alternative medicine are
among the most common targets of such attackers, known as internet
“trolls” or “shills,” who in many cases are nothing more
than paid
lackeys hired by the federal government and
other international organizations to
sway and ultimately control public opinion.

Several
years ago, Canada’s CTV
News aired
a short segment about how its own government had
been exposed for
hiring secret agents to monitor social media and track online
conversations, as well as the activities of certain dissenting
individuals. This report, which in obvious whitewashing language
referred to such activities as the government simply “weighing
in and correcting”
allegedly false information posted online, basically admitted that
the Canadian government had assumed the role of secret
online police.

You
can see a video news report about this activity up in Canada right
here.

Are
you disturbed yet?

You
should be.

So
what kind of people are the governments of the western world
targeting online?

Sadly,
the reality of the matter is that the days of the free and open
Internet are numbered. The governments of the world are
increasing their control over the Internet with each passing day, and
eventually a time will likely come when we will not be able to
communicate openly like this any longer.

A
recent court decision that endorsed a broad view of the Federal
Communications Commission’s authority over the Internet has Google
and other Web companies nervous.

In
closed-door meetings with regulators and Capitol Hill staff, Google’s
lawyers have said they’re worried how the FCC may use its newfound
powers, according to multiple people familiar with the meetings.

The
extent of the FCC’s authority over Google and other Web services
remains unclear, and the current FCC has given no indication that it
is interested in pushing aggressive new regulations. But the
possibility that the commission could begin telling Google how to
organize its search results or handle its users’ data is enough to
spook the company’s army of Washington lobbyists.

And
this is just the beginning.

If
you think that the control freaks that are running things now are
bad, just wait until you see the next generation of control freaks.

For
example, there is one prominent student writer at Harvard that
apparently believes that free speech at her university should be
abolished and that any professor that does not advocate for her
politically-correct version of “justice” should
be fired…

A
student writer at Harvard University is raising eyebrows after
publishing her belief that free speech on campus should be abolished
and professors with opposing views be fired.

Sandra
Korn, a senior who writes a column for the Harvard Crimson newspaper,
thinks radical leftism is the only permissible political philosophy,
and the First Amendment only hinders colleges from brainwashing
students with her viewpoint.

“Let’s
give up on academic freedom in favor of justice,” states the
subtitle of her Feb.
18 column,
in which she insists Harvard stop guaranteeing students and
professors the right to hold controversial views and conduct research
putting liberalism in a negative light.

“If
our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism,
why should we put up with research that counters our goals?” Korn
asks.

This
is what control freaks always want.

They
always want to shut down those that are presenting opposing views.

They
don’t believe in free speech and a “marketplace of ideas”.
Rather, they believe in shoving what they believe down the rest of
our throats.

And
now we have solid proof that the governments of the western world are
paying people to manipulate discourse on social media, blogs, forums
and websites.

So
will there be great outrage over this, or will the apathetic public
just roll over and ignore this like they have so many other times the
past few years?

We have all seen the following - something that the powers-that-be seek to exploit -

From
a climate-wrecking human warming spurring the melting of glaciers and
ice sheets to the thermal expansion of the world’s oceans, sea
level rise, to some degree or another over the next century is a
given. How rapid this expansion progresses and how much land it
devours will ultimately depend upon the amount of heat trapping gas
we belch into the atmosphere and how sensitive the Earth’s climate
system is to our increasingly traumatic insults.

Current
conservative assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) estimate a total of 90 centimeters (nearly 1 meter)
additional sea level rise before the end of this century. Today’s
rate of sea level rise gets us to about 30 centimeters over the same
period, so the IPCC is projecting that the pace of rising seas will
more than triple over the coming years and decades.

Despite
the fact that the rate of sea level rise and related glacial melt
would have to rapidly uptick to meet the IPCC estimate, it remains a
conservative case.

Temperatures, over the next century under business
as usual fossil fuel emissions or a moderate mitigation scenario, are
likely to increase by between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius. This range of
global heating is enough to eventually melt all or nearly all the
glacial ice on Earth. So the heat forcing to the world’s glaciers
is expected to be extreme, a blow at least equaling the temperature
change between now and the last ice age. A temperature change that
took 10,000 years to complete now crammed into an exceptionally brief
period from 1880 to 2100.

Under
such an outrageous pace of warming, a warming that could propel Earth
to near Permian and PETM temperatures within 85 years, it is likely
that the rate of sea level rise could be double or more that of IPCC
predictions, possibly equaling or exceeding peak rates of sea level
rise during the end of the last ice age at 10 feet per century. So
the range of increase may well be between 1 and 3+ meters, making the
IPCC case quite an underestimation if business as usual fossil fuel
emissions continue.

(Survey
of scientist projections of sea level rise in centimeters by 2100
under a high emissions scenario (RCP 8.5). Note that a majority of
scientists project sea level rise in the range of 1 to 3 meters by
2100 with some scientists projecting as much as a 3 to 6 meter rise
over the same period. Image source: Real
Climate’s Excellent November Report on Sea Level Rise)

Unfortunately
PIG is the first of many glacial systems from West Antarctica to
Greenland that are likely to suffer the same fate. For from these
vulnerable regions, mass losses from glacial melt have more than
doubled over the past decade. In total, by
2008, about 90% of the world’s glaciers were in retreat.
And since that time, warming has continued to advance with melt
episodes becoming ever-more predominant.

So
there are many reasons to believe the IPCC estimates for glacial melt
rates and related sea level rise, as with Northern Hemisphere sea ice
losses, are too conservative and that science, in general, is still
coming to grips with a dramatic and geologically unprecedented pace
of change. That said, even IPCC findings are becoming increasingly
stark.

Indonesia
to Lose 10% of its Islands by Mid-Century

For
if only the very conservative IPCC estimates bear out, we are still
likely to see dramatic loss of lands and displacement of human
beings.

A
glaring example appears in new report from Maplecroft’s
Climate Change Vulnerability Index
which found that more than 1,500 islands in Indonesia would disappear
after just a half meter of sea level rise. The study also found that
the same amount of sea level rise would flood up to half of the
capital city of Jakarta. Meanwhile, the 90 centimeters of sea level
rise projected by the IPCC for the end of this century would put 42
million people along the coastline at risk of losing their homes.

This
archipelago’s biggest threat is rising sea levels, where 42 million
people living three kilometres from the coast are vulnerable if
estimated sea level rise reaches up to 90 centimetres by the end of
the century.

Indonesia
is composed of over 17,000 islands, many of which are low lying or
feature sprawling and vulnerable coast lines. It is located in a
region of the world where ocean levels are among the most rapidly
rising. It is among a growing number of islands and low-lying coastal
regions that are under increasing threat from what would seem even a
modest change in sea level.

But
as we went at length to illustrate above, Indonesia and other regions
may be lucky to see only a 90 centimeter rise. So these projected
impacts, though seemingly stark, may be at the low end of what we are
likely to experience. Add just one more meter and most of Jakarta is
flooded while 42 million of Indonesia’s people are almost certain
to be members of a vast global migration away from the world’s
coastlines.

From
Friday all applications for offshore exploration will be scrutinised
by the Environmental Protection Authority, which will have sole power
to approve or reject them.

The
Environmental Protection Authority now has sole discretion over oil
and gas exploration permits.

But
Green Party energy spokesperson Gareth Hughes says the Government is
wrong to block its citizens from making submissions on exploratory
deep sea oil drilling permits.

"The
government has bent over backwards for the oil industry doing
everything they can to make it easier to operate in New Zealand,
including $46 million in tax breaks in the last year and $25 million
in seismic surveys. And here they are directly limiting the public
having a say."

Mr
Hughes says the consequences of a spill from exploratory drilling
would affect everyone.

But
Environment Minister Amy Adams says the Government wants direct
decision-making to be handed to the authority so the oil industry is
not overly burdened with costs and delays.

She
says the public will have a chance to make submissions on oil and gas
drilling in New Zealand's exclusive economic zone.

Ms
Adams, told Morning Report the right time for the public to make
submissions is after exploration and before production.

The
Environmental Defence Society says the Government has taken two steps
forward by improving environmental oversight, but gone one step back
by not allowing public consultation.

Chairperson
Garry Taylor says the Government has been subject to lobbying and has
created a favourable regime for the oil and gas industry.

"Deep
sea drilling in New Zealand water is a new development and I'd have
thought that given the risk of something going wrong that we should
have best practice regulation."

Premier
Denis Napthine is refusing to confirm or deny the speculation, except
to say that he will be making an announcement in Morwell at 1pm
(AEDT) with health and fire officials.

Dr
Napthine says the Government has done enough to provide a break for
residents trapped indoors by the smoke.

"We
are running respite centres, we will be looking to have broader
respite options over the weekend when families and people who are
normally week day workers have the opportunity to get out of
Morwell," he said.

The
town has been in the path of a choking stream of smoke coming from a
fire at the Hazelwood coal mine which has been burning since February
9.

Residents
are complaining of headaches and trouble breathing.

People
with chronic heart and lung conditions, the elderly, pregnant women,
smokers and children, are being advised to stay indoors.

A
Latrobe City Councillor says the State Government should be doing
more to help the residents.

Councillor
Graeme Middlemiss says the Government should pay to evacuate the most
vulnerable people.

"I
just don't know why we are leaving people in this atmosphere who are
at risk from it," he said.

As
recently as yesterday the Government was calling on Victorians to
give up their empty holiday houses to give those in the path of the
smoke a break.

The
main health concern surrounds exposure to small particulates found in
the air and smoke.

The
invisible particles, known as PM2.5, can penetrate the deepest part
of the lungs and respiratory system.

A
study published in the British Medical Journal last month found only
a small increase in this particulate matter can lead to an increased
risk of heart attacks and lung cancer.

The
concentration of these particulates reached 280 micrograms per cubic
metre in Morwell South on Thursday, more than 11 times Australia's
daily threshold.

The
study's lead researcher, Guilia Cesaroni from the Department of
Epidemiology at Rome's regional health service, studied more than
100,000 people in five European cities over a decade.

"We
found an association between increased levels of PM2.5 and mortality
and also with incidence of lung cancer," she said.

Dr
Cesaroni found an increase in annual exposure to PM2.5 of just 5
micrograms per cubic metre means a 13 per cent increased risk of
heart attack.